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Details
LOT 1538
Chinese Han Style Bronze Horse Weight
19TH-20TH CENTURY A.D.
3 in. (203 grams, 78 mm).
A Han style bronze weight modelled as a reclining horse, all four legs tucked beneath its body, neck and head leaning backwards and to one side of the body; the animal displaying a characterful face with bulging eyes and flared nostrils; a dense and intricate series of geometric motifs adorning the body; hollow-formed.
Provenance
Acquired 1980-1990s.
From a West Country collection.
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AUCTIONS:
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A Han style bronze weight modelled as a reclining horse, all four legs tucked beneath its body, neck and head leaning backwards and to one side of the body; the animal displaying a characterful face with bulging eyes and flared nostrils; a dense and intricate series of geometric motifs adorning the body; hollow-formed. 203 grams, 78 mm
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Since ancient times, “Lari Festival” has been a festival to offer sacrifice to various gods at the end of the year. In the Tang Dynasty, it was a custom to hunt this day, which was not only meant to meet the demand for sacrifice, but also to reveal the hunting loving warrior spirit then. In the poem titled Hunting On Lari Festival, Yao He in the mid and late periods of the Tang Dynasty also mentioned one of his collective hunting events to meet the demand for sacrifice on that festival when he was governor of Jin Zhou. Emperor Xianzong was very much astounded at such slaughters of foxes and hares and observed, "Every Lari Festival recent years, I heard some prefectures and counties, to take something to the capital, catch and raise foxes and hares to serve as tributes” (Complete Tang Proses,Vol. 60); therefore he issued the Fox & Hare Hunting Forbidding Decree.
